Cianna Arathiel
Name Real Name: Cianna Arithdrach'serevoka Arathiel Stromwell Known As: Cianna, Arithdrach'serevoka IC Information Current Age: 312 Attitude: Usually kind and smiling when meeting new people. Her eyes generally tell her mood. Appearance: Tall and slender for a Sun Elf, with deep green eyes being her most obvious feature. Her once luscious blond hair is now faded to white, but she shows no other signs of her age. Her hands and back are badly scarred as if something once protruded from them. Her teeth are oddly shaped, almost fang-like. Appearance, Part II (Equipment worn): Cianna generally wears very concealing green coats over a black or white tunic. She carries a sword at her belt despite her lack of skill with it, and a bow is always on her back. Character's Religious Dogma: She is a devout follower of Bahamut, Lord of Platinum Dragons. After centuries of doing his work, she has been granted some divine spellcasting. She will not fight dragons unless absolutely necessary, although it is rare to see her react to dragonkind as her blood usually acts for her. Common Statistics Race: Sun Elf, with a hint of dragon's blood. Height: 5'7" Weight: 100 lbs. Skin Tone: Light Skin Texture: Soft and smooth. Eyes: Deep green, with varying intensity depending on her mood. Hair: Silver-white, faded from blond. Left Handed or Right Handed: Right Favored Weapons: Bow and Staff Accent: Her common accent is unrecognizable, a conglomeration of different accents from the places that she visited in her adventuring carreer. Her elven accent is not as flawless as you'd expect from an elf, but it is still almost perfect. Her draconic is flawless. Commonly spoken languages: Common, Draconic, Elven Recognizable Features: Deep green eyes, silver hair, scarred hands, fang-shaped teeth. Relatives: None in the area. Backstory: Cianna Arathiel was born into a small noble family in Evereska. Her mother was a renowned priestess of Corellon Larenthian. Her father was unknown, and rumored to be a human, though such rumors were false. As a child, she found more excitement in the archery fields of Solonor Thelandria’s followers than in her mother’s stuffy church. She was a very slender and nimble child, and the city’s scouts taught her their skills. When she came of age to begin religious studies, she refused and her mother was greatly angered. As a priestess of Corellon, her mother thought it was her responsibility to teach Cianna the ways of Corellon’s clergy. Cianna rebelled against such “boring” practices, and snuck away to train with the city’s scouts. After a skirmish with raiding Drow, Cianna found a spellbook amongst the ruins. The Drow book taught Cianna much, despite her lack of arcane knowledge. After a year of study, she had produced her first spell, that of fatigue. Her mother was impressed and placed her in the Evereskan Academy of the Arcane, but she dropped out only a year later, bored of bookstudy. Now, a former adventuring companion of her mother’s came from Suzail and visited Evereska in the hopes of being granted an audience with the gold dragon Horadyzan, an ally of the Evereskan counsel. Her mother’s friend was a half-elven noble and priest of the Draco Paladin, Bahamut. The half-elven noble, surnamed Stromwell, met Cianna and was impressed by her skills as a scout. With her mother’s reluctant permission, Cianna was sent to train under Elebrain Ravenwood, a moon elf archer under the employ of House Stromwell. Cianna learned much from Elebrian Ravenwood in the art of archery. Her skills with a bow increased quickly, but she became fascinated with the art of arcane magic. She was inspired by an arcane archer who she met at an archery competition in Suzail. She immediately began re-studying arcane arts, and found she that her clever mind facilitated her study of the art. Soon after she began however, she was sent to Grimthorpe, a small town in the Pirate Isles, to scout out the area and send information back to Suzail. She was instructed to aid as much as she could against the forces of evil in the area. It is said that the Lord Stromwell’s intentions for sending her was that he believed that he needed to send a force to strengthen the defenses of the town, and she would be their scout. The Lord Stromwell had once visited the island, and decided that it was an island worth protecting. The experience, he decided, would also be good for the young and industrious Cianna. Therefore, Cianna sailed to Aria, with a bow in hand and a spellbook in her bag, unaware of the challenges that would face her when she arrived. Upon her arrival in the Pirate Isles, Cianna found that surviving the island's dangers would challenge her to use every skills that she had learned . Cianna made contact with the Grimthorpe watch, but the watch would not accept an unproven scout into their ranks, and so Cianna was forced to prove herself. Cianna's very survival on the island was greatly aided by a fellow elven ranger, Elvewyn Enge'fever. She commonly rented horses from a nearby town, and these horses allowed her to outrun most dangers. Eventually, after proving herself an ally of the watch through many battles, Cianna was admitted into the Watch. On another note, Cianna began to rethink her own religious beliefs. Though she had been raised to follow the Seldarine, she had learned quite a bit from her time under the employ of House Stromwell. She began to follow Bahamut's teachings, as she found that many of them coincided with her own personal beliefs. She began praying fervently, becoming a near-zealot of Bahamut's holy work. Realizing the superior power of dragons, Cianna decided that using dragon parts, one could make armor to protect oneself from the evils of chromatic dragonkind. After almost a year of intense research, Cianna emerged with many ideas and began to implement them. Working with the dwarves of a local town, the local armorer was able to craft a greenscale jerkin from the scales of an Adult Green Dragon that Cianna had slain. The fruits of her research finally realized, Cianna turned to the main teaching of House Stromwell, eliminate the Cult of Dragon. Unfortunately, the Cult was prepared for her. An evil organization dedicated to the birth of undead dragons (dracoliches), the Cult of Dragon is large and well-funded. Employing an army of evil half-dragons, dragons, dracoliches and human followers alike, the Cult of Dragon and their Tiamatan allies fought a number of battles with Cianna's forces, eventually capturing Cianna herself. As a prisoner, Cianna was tortured daily. She was whipped, cut, beaten, all the usual means of torture, but Cianna was not deterred by such means of physical pain. She stayed loyal to the Platinum Lord, her constant prayer greatly lessening her suffering. She maintained prayers rituals that only a very devout priest of Bahamut would bother to maintain, and was commonly beaten when seen in prayer. She held out well, for a captive under an evil organization, until one day: The fateful day that jerked Cianna's life, belief, and even her very being, began as any other day. Like most days, Cianna was taken into a dark room, laid out on a cot and tied down with heavy chains. Instead of the usual beating, the Cultists then left the room and returned with a large covered cage. As they uncovered the cage, Cianna saw a young green dragon tied down with heavy metal chains, struggling to free itself but failing badly. Cianna heard footsteps and turned her head to the room's entrance, where a hooded man entered with a very large axe. The hooded Cultist raised his axe and took one swift swing at the dragon's neck. The young dragon attempted to roar, but as its throat was severed by the Cultist's axe, all that the young dragon could emit before slumping over was a loud, high pitced screech. A creature that should have lived for a millennium, cut down at a young age, in cold blood. Cianna winced at the loud screech, beginning to rethink her hatred of chromatic dragons. A few robed cultists surrounded the dead dragon and began a ritual, but Cianna was too tired to make out the words. As the cultists neared the end of their ritual, one of them covered a long dagger in the dragon's blood and brought it towards Cianna. Cianna braced herself for pain, but when the cultist's dagger pierced Cianna's skin, she felt a different pain from any pain she had ever felt before. She screamed from her intense pain and, unable to resist the pain, she fainted. For the next week, Cianna was neither able to sleep nor stand. She lay in extreme pain, screaming and yelling constantly, much to the amusement of the cultists. Cianna felt a pain strong enough that she prayed for death, to free her from her torture. The cultists refused. Her mind began to leave her, her memories floated away. When she tried to think, all that she could remember was the screech of the young green dragon as the cultists slaughtered it. She felt a mental pain, emotional pain, and physical pain so strong that she just prayed for death. She had even forgotten the name of her god, all she knew was that she must pray for death, or any relief from the pain. Relief came in the strangest of ways. Words began to form in Cianna's mind, lyrics to musical ballads, and Cianna sung them. Her songs, strange draconic tunes that she neither recognized nor understood how she knew, comforted her and was the only thing she could ever do to fight the pain that seemed so endlessly to inhabit her body. Her singing kept her sane for a few more weeks, but she was terribly hurt, both physically and mentally. Eventually, her voice gave out, and she fainted. She lay in a coma, unable to wake until she was rescued and healed by the local mage academy. When Cianna awoke in the mage tower, she felt like a different woman. She had forgotten nearly all about herself, except her name and childhood. She knew she was Cianna Arathiel, daughter of the priestess Lia of Evereska. That was about all she could remember when she awoke. Not only was she mentally a mess, having lost her memory, most of her knowledge and all of her magical talent, but she felt physically different. She retained her quick reflexes, they returned to her when she was healed. Her muscles still remembered how to fire a bow, though her mind would not allow her the same aim she had before her torture. Most importantly, the pain was gone. She could stand and walk again, but her mind constantly returned to memories of her terrible pain and that single loud screech, the final sound of the young green dragon. The local mages gave Cianna a bow, and returned her to Grimthorpe, that she may start a new life. The Watch rejected her, claiming that they had heard stories of terrible things she had said while in her coma. She knew not what she had said, but they still would no longer accept her. So, Cianna set out to forge a new path, remembering the blood she had lost, and unaware of the blood that she had gained. The new path went well for Cianna, and although she had lost many of her talents, she quickly gained them back. She regained magic, though she realized that she no longer needed to study books, and now the magic came from herself. Confused, she consulted a sorceress friend of hers who determined that she was dragon-blooded. She never understood how this could have happened, as she was born to two normal elven parents. She realized it must have been the Cult's ritual. She was still tormented by the image of the young green dragon's death, and his final scream. Whenever she saw a dragon in pain, Cianna would lose her mind, falling unconscious at times. People began to think her crazy. Nonetheless, she learned to harness her new-found power and she began a painful yet empowering transition. The Changing. At first, Cianna just felt stronger. Then blades seemed to bounce off her hardened skin. Finally, after the most painful year of Cianna's long life, Cianna grew a set of scaled green wings. She loved her wings, as they allowed her to fly and feel a beautiful breeze. Unfortunately, at the same time, the Pirates of the Pirate Isles combined their forces and mounted an attack. Although not working for the Watch, Cianna led forces to counteract the pirates. It was a bloody war and Cianna does not remember the end. All she knows was that she flew up to the top of a suspicious black tower, and felt the greatest pain she could ever know. Worse than growing wings, worse than her blood being taken over. When Cianna awoke, she had lost her wings and claws. Her strength remained, but her magic was gone. Cianna was full of anger, and hatred. Officially crazy, she was banished from the Pirate Isles and she eventually made her way to the city of Zhentil Keep. Again, the Zhents disliked her and eventually kicked her out. Cianna wandered for a few years, lost in her own anger and memories. Arriving at the small town of Nesme, Cianna began to learn to control her anger by using it in combat. She derived a new form of unleashing the power in her blood, by carving magical runes unto her own skin. It was painful, yes, but nothing in comparison to what Cianna had seen before. The runes unleashed her draconic power, increasing her strength, size and resolve in order to make her a stronger combatant. Unfortunately, no other runes seemed to work for her, except for this one magical boost. Therefore, she began training with blades and eventually was asked to join the Riders. Reluctantly, she accepted. Although she disliked the Riders, she needed an excuse to fight and a way to put gold in her pocket. And so, Cianna who was once an arcane archer and slayer of dragons, who was once nearly a half-dragon in power and strength, started anew as a recruit of the Nesme Riders. Her blades would be her trade, her strength and the runes she carved into her skin would make her a formidable fighter. Cianna proved she could be a formidable warrior, helping defend Nesme from all sort of terrible creatures. On one day however, a goblin horde fell upon the city and broke far into its gates. Partly by luck, partly by strength, Cianna was one of the few adventurers not killed in the first round of fighting. She single-handedly pushed the goblins back with her formidable draconic rage. Goblin after goblin ran from the terror that was her great blade. (See: Stories – The Goblin Slaughter) The people of Nesme had no thanks for the terrible visage that had saved them. They cursed Cianna, calling her a monster. She was cast from Nesme's gates only a few days after she saved the town's gates from the goblin's assault. She wandered for years, finally meeting the grandson of the noble that had granted her a job so many years ago. She fell in love with this young half-elf, and the love removed the terrible rage from her body. Although her power was no longer available, she turned her energies from battle to that of aiding her lover. She married the half-elven noble, now the prince of a small kingdom in the Western Heartlands, and helped him run the kingdom for half-a-century. She had finally settled down, and was glad. Half-elves, unfortunately, do not live nearly as long as their elven partners. Her husband died, and Cianna felt another pain she had never expected, the loss of a lover. Her daughters, Illia and Kairi, took control of the kingdom. Cianna chose to take the road, her faith in her offspring allowing her to leave them to rule without her. After a long journey, Cianna found her eye for the bow had returned. She took up the bow once again, this time as an adventurer sworn to help those that she could. Eventually, she regained her ability to hide in the comfort of the forest. In had been a circle, from a scout to a scout. The power remained untapped in her blood, though her fangs had partly returned. She chose to rely on her bow, not her blood. The dragon-blooded archer, Cianna Arathiel Stromwell, rode into Yulash on the same fateful day that it entered the shadow-plane, not knowing what her adventuring spirit had gotten her into. She spent over half-a-century in the Moonsea area before her body rejected her bow. No longer able to fight, Cianna retreated to the fortress she knew in the Pirate Isles and began studying the Arcane in order to make herself able to adventure again. Pain no longer had an effect on her, but without her strength, Cianna couldn't fight even a few Ogres. After an injury fighting Orcs on the Isles, Cianna secluded herself in an underground library for a decade, studying the arcane day and night. Finally she attained her former skill with magic and began to attempt a spell she hadn't tried in centuries – Teleportation. The spell failed badly and she was yanked from her hideout in the Pirate Isles all the way to the unsuspecting town of Ashabenford. Cursing her luck, she entered Ashabenford with a spellbook in her hand and the love of the Platinum Lord in her heart. (OOC) Information Time spent in Myth Drannor: A few days Playing Status: Semi-active Regional Feats (Concept Related): Toughness (ability to resist pain from experience) Current Character Level: 4 Current Character Alignment: Neutral Good Perfect Alignment Title: Benevolent Individualist Category:PC